Why is Facebook Down in India?

Facebook users in India woke up for a nasty surprise this morning. The website has been blocked by the government as a court trial begins against the social network and 11 other companies.

If you are in India and wondering why Facebook is not opening today –don’t think there is something wrong with your computer, browser or Internet connection.

The real reason is that Facebook has been blocked by the government of India on Mar 13, 2012.

The Indian government has put Facebook and 11 other Internet companies on trial for not removing the content that is considered offensive to the Indian sentiments. The site became inaccessible shortly before midnight yesterday.

There are close to 40 million people in India who have created their accounts on Facebook. India has a great potential to fuel Facebook’s growth because India is second most populous country in the world and people are getting more and more tech savvy here.

Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook topping one billion users mark.

The court trial of Facebook might cause a long disruption of service. It is, however, expected that some compromise formula shall soon be worked out. But if Facebook remains adamant on not removing the content as instructed by India –the ban on Facebook service may go on.

For last 12 hours, Facebook is throwing DNS error in India. This is because the government has directed internet services providers to block this social networking website as the court begins trial of Facebook and 11 other companies in connection with offensive content.

Update at 11:08AM on 13th March The good news is that the website has begin to open up in various places in India. It is however acting erratic -sometimes it opens sometimes does not. If a compromise formula has been worked out -the DNS unblocking may take a little while. Stay tuned for more updates on the issue.

Lalit Kumar is the Principal Author and Founder of TechWelkin. He is a web explorer and he enjoys finding useful information on the Internet. He loves to put things together to create a bigger solution. Lalit is passionate about technology, languages and literature. You can contact Lalit via email (techwelkin [at] gmail [dot] com) or Facebook (facebook.com/techwelkin).